Law and legal issues

Buy now/pay later provider Sezzle has filed a lawsuit against Shopify, alleging that the e-commerce giant engaged in antitrust practices by making it difficult for merchants to integrate Sezzle's BNPL offering into their websites.

A Trump-appointed judge refused to dismiss a settlement between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a Chicago mortgage lender over lending practices that an appeals court already said violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

The Trump administration's plan to fire 90% of the staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has raised constitutional questions about whether courts can decide whether a president is taking "care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

Firing 90% of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's staff and stripping it down to "the statutory studs" is lawful, an attorney for the CFPB told an appeals court.

The closely watched case centers on bank allegations the government corporation promised certain reverse-mortgage assets in return for funding then reneged.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dismissed or withdrawn from more than 20 lawsuits as the Trump administration reverses the work done during the Biden era.

A federal judge has ordered FDATR, a now-defunct student loan debt relief provider, to pay $43 million in restitution and fees, bucking the trend of cases brought by the Biden administration-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being dropped.

Plaintiffs raise prior accusations that the lender ignored applicants' debts in collections, and used unreasonable residual income calculations.

A federal judge has ordered a staff member of the Department of Government Efficiency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top lawyer to appear at an evidentiary hearing next week.

A federal judge in Texas found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had violated the CARD Act by barring banks from charging late fees for credit cards.

The Trump administration is leapfrogging the normal process by taking its fight over a district court injunction blocking efforts to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to a federal appeals court, according to the CFPB workers' union.

The Trump administration continues to battle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's union by seeking a stay of a preliminary injunction that reinstated the CFPB's workforce and contracts and preserved its data.

A Maryland judge temporarily halted mass layoffs of probationary employees at multiple agencies, citing legal violations and harm to states' ability to respond to unemployment needs.

At a court hearing on Monday, lawyers for the Trump administration said statutorily required work is being done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the union claimed the government is trying to shut the agency down.

Housing finance players accused of wronging consumers slammed the lawsuits as politically motivated efforts by former Biden-era bureau director Rohit Chopra.

The Justice Department said in a legal brief that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to exist, but said instead that the agency will have fewer employees and a reduced budget under the Trump administration.

The manufactured home loan lender, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary Clayton Homes, was accused of ignoring red flags that sent many borrowers into bankruptcy, default and ultimately out of their homes.

Newrez's servicing arm approved an "obviously counterfeit" HELOC request from a bad actor totaling almost $500,000, a complaint claims.

The watchdog accuses Rocket Homes and The Mitchell Group brokerage of initiating a plan to generate origination business for Rocket Mortgage.

The Florida-based brokerage The Okavage Group is challenging the dismissal of its antitrust suit against UWM, filing an appeal on Oct. 17 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.